


Stealing Christmas

by FrenchRoast



Category: Animorphs - Applegate
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-21
Updated: 2009-12-21
Packaged: 2017-10-04 22:06:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/34596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FrenchRoast/pseuds/FrenchRoast
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The guys meet to discuss an exceptionally devious Yeerk plan for the holidays...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stealing Christmas

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Farasha Silversand (Farasha)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Farasha/gifts).



“Whose bright idea was it to meet at the mall in the middle of the Christmas shopping rush?” Marco asked as he sat down at the mall café table Tobias, “Phillip”, and I were sitting at. “A bunch of kids nearly ran me over trying to get to Santa. And the people...it's like Rachel multiplied by the thousands. I hate Black Friday.”

 

“So that’s why it’s so crowded,” Tobias said. “I’d forgotten how crazy some people get.” Normally, a comment like that from Tobias would make me feel bad, but I'd forgotten about the shopping, too. I've never been all that enthused about shopping. Even less so these days; it's not like Visser Three stops for the holidays.

 

“What, there’s no bird equivalent? No Hawknukah? Maybe Swanzaa?” Marco grinned, clearly pleased with himself. I wondered how long he'd been saving thoe puns for.

 

“Birds don’t give each other gifts.”

 

“Right, they usually are the gifts. Partridge in a pear tree, turtledoves, geese a-laying…”

 

“Ax-man wanted Cinnabons,” I said, interrupting Marco and gesturing towards “Phillip”. I grabbed one for myself from the large plate. Ax watched me take a bite, and was clearly fighting hard not to snatch it from me. He was learning to control his human morph’s sense of taste. That, or Tobias had promised him another at the end of the meeting.

 

”Don’t you need to go plead your case to Santa, Marco?”

 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Tobias. I’m on the Nice list this year.” Marco slathered some extra icing on his Cinnabon. “The rest of you, however…”

 

"Right. But as one of Santa's elves, I guess he does have to overlook some of your shenanigans."

 

"Shenanigans?" Marco asked, pointedly ignoring the slight to his height.

 

I rolled my eyes. “Enough, enough. Ax, Tobias, why don’t you tell us why you called the meeting?”

 

Ax nodded very solemnly. “The Yeerks are going to steal Christmas.”

 

Needless to say, that was not what I was expecting him to say. Not even close.

 

Marco burst out laughing. “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard of, Ax. And I say this as someone who fought a battle involving instant ginger maple oatmeal.”

 

“I know it sounds insane—“ Tobias started, but Marco cut him off.

 

“No, it sounds completely logical,” he said sarcastically. “It makes perfect sense; the Yeerks are so good at stealing brains and bodies, so stealing Christmas is obviously going to be a piece of cake for them.”

 

“Marco, why don’t you let one of them explain?” I said with a sigh. I was tired; the last mission had been work enough. We already had to save the world; were we really going to have to save Christmas, too? And without Cassie and Rachel? They wouldn’t be back for days. I hoped this was a plan we'd have to do some reconnaissance for first. Not that I relished morphing cockroaches or flies, but there was usually less bloodshed. Would it be too much to hope for one week without some kind of battle?

 

Marco held up his hands in mock surrender. “Fine. But if you think Visser Three’s heart growing three sizes larger is going to end our problems, you’re wrong.”

 

“Actually, if his hearts were to increase in size by that much, it would kill Visser Three’s host body, and likely his Yeerk body,” Ax interjected. “It wouldn’t end all our problems, but it would considerably disorient the invasion.”

 

“Excellent point, Ax. But Visser Three is not the Grinch," Tobias said. “You should’ve said, they’re planning to use Christmas to get more hosts.”

 

“And how, pray tell, are they planning to do that?” Marco crossed his arms. I waited, equally curious.

 

“Everyone gets Christmas trees, right? I mean, I had a screwed up family, but even my aunt or my uncle managed to get a Christmas tree and put some tinsel on it. Well, the Yeerks bought Smee’s Trees, or the Sharing did.”

 

I nodded. “Tom’s been over there all week.” He was there now, in fact.

 

“So they’re selling Christmas trees to make money. They’ve done worse," Marco shrugged. "We can't stop every hare-brained scheme they concoct."

 

“We have to stop this one. See, they’re not just selling the trees. This year, the trees come with special stands that are really mini Yeerk pools. With Yeerks inside.”

 

I dropped my Cinnabon. “Come again?”

 

Ax continued where Tobias had left off. “Families buy the trees. They set them up in their homes, and then the Yeerks crawl out while they’re sleeping, and infest them in their sleep."

 

"If there aren’t enough Yeerks for the whole family, the infested family members can just bring the uninfested ones to the Yeerk pool and do it there.”

 

I blinked. “Are you serious?”

 

Before he could answer, Marco jumped in. “That is insane. And just crazy enough I that I can actually see Visser Three trying it.”

 

“But how do we stop them? Everyone buys Christmas trees.” Now I was genuinely worried; I’m half-Jewish on my dad’s side of the family, same as Rachel, but my family always celebrated Hannukah _and_ Christmas. We were supposed to be getting our Christmas tree from Smee’s trees this year, thanks to Tom. I’d thought it was just his Yeerk trying to make him seem like a better son after our parents had been hounding him to participate in family stuff more often (and they’d been hounding me only slightly less). Of course there were Yeerk strings attached.

 

“Earplugs,” Ax said. “If everyone wears earplugs, the Yeerk will not be able to enter the ear canal and will die of exposure in a matter of hours.”

 

“So our mission is to get people to wear earplugs?”

 

“Yes.” Tobias and Ax stared back at me, deadly serious.  Marco stared down at his Cinnabon, probably deciding whether to crack another joke or dive into the insanity with the rest of us. I didn’t know what to say. I just kept turning the idea over in my head. How would we get people to put in earplugs for no reason? How could we stop the Christmas tree operation the Sharing had going on? Maybe have a stampede? Rachel was off visiting family, so we’d be short our African elephant, but we had rhino morphs, and…

 

I looked over at Marco again, and noticed a twinge of smile pulling at his lips.

 

“You’ve been punked!” Ax exclaimed gleefully.

 

“Liars, all of you!” I said, and the three of them roared with laughter, even Ax. “Low down, dirty liars. You’re all getting coal from Santa, I hope you know.”  Annoyed as I was that I'd completely bought it, I breathed a sigh of relief that we weren't actually going to have to save Christmas.

 

Marco grinned. “The look on your face, Jake. Makes the naughty list completely worth it.”

 

“It could be worse, Jake. It could’ve been for real,” Tobias said.

 

“I suppose I have you and Marco to thank for this?”

 

“Believe it or not, the initial idea was Ax’s.”

 

That surprised me. “Ax? You came up with this?”

 

“I merely suggested to Tobias one day while we were hanging out at Cassie’s house that it would be good for me to have more human experiences. Good for both of us.”

 

“We were watching Punk’d,” Tobias explained.

 

“So naturally they came to me, Ashton Kutcher’s far hunkier counterpart, and I helped them,” Marco added.

 

I raised an eyebrow. “If you’re Ashton Kutcher, I’m one of the X-men. And Ax?”

 

“Yes, Prince Jake?”

 

“Don’t call me Prince. And I think there’s another human experience you should participate in.”

 

“What, Prince Jake?”

 

“Thanksgiving leftovers. There’s half a turkey in my family’s fridge just waiting to be eaten. Tobias, Marco, you can both come over too. We’ll watch a game or something, and maybe Mom can bake us some brownies. No hard feelings.”

 

“Can Tobias actually eat turkey?” Marco asked. “Or wouldn’t that be like cannibalism?”

 

I smiled as we picked up our plates and walked over to the trash. They’d gotten me, and gotten me good, but payback—especially in the form of delicious, laxative-laced brownies—is a bitch.


End file.
